Dit zijn de afstanden die er per dag gefietst zijn. Dag 4 was de rustdag.Dag 5 en 6 waren de dagen dat we rond hebben gereden in de Veluwe zonder bagage.
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Spain - Day 19 : Back in the mountains
When we were packing everything, a farmer was plowing the field next to us. He had seen us but didn't say anything. We cycled until we found a store. It was a small supermarket with the lights off. There were many customers nonetheless. We still had half the jar of paté left, so we didn't need to buy more. I did buy three chocolate bars. At around 10:30, we arrived at the top of a small climb.
Puerto de Alcubierre.
After the climb, we arrived at a flat landscape. We rode passed a canal and some kilometers over gravel roads. These changes made it more fun to cycle than in the past few days. During lunch, we ate on a dirt road. The paté still wasn't finished. I ate a chocolate bar for dessert.
We also still needed to call Cycletours to confirm we would take the bus back. You needed to do that if you were traveling for more than 21 days, if you didn't, your spot on the bus would be given away. We thought that was very odd, especially since we had already paid for it. It would make way more sense to call if you couldn't catch the bus. When I called, the man asked if we knew what time, which date, and where we needed to be. I remembered all of that, we really didn't want to miss that bus.
The landscape looked like Utah in America.
The landscape
At the end of the day we would again deviate from the original route and cycle towards Andorra. First, we passed through Barbastro. We planned to have a quick stop to buy ice cream. Eventually, we left with a three course cycling vacation dinner but forgot to buy ice creams. This time, like we somehow did at least once every vacation, we bought a melon so large that even we would never be able to finish it. After Barbastro, we arrived on a large road running from west to east through the Pyrenees. It was mostly uphill but not very steep. There were tunnels but fortunately no long ones. We took photos near a reservoir.
The reservoir Embalse de Barasona
The view remained nice because we were passing through an enormous canyon. From Barbastro, it was about 40 km to Benabarre. That city has a lovely old center, where we sat down in an alcove to eat. We finally finished the paté so we could eat something else after two days.
840 gram paté in two days
After Benabarre, we continued along a large road, at the end of which we had a long descent to a river. We crossed the river and ended up on a minor road. We were apparently in a touristy area and climbing a mountain because next to the road were signs indicating our elevation and how far it still was until the summit. After half an hour, we were already tired, or just from the last two weeks. Time to take a break. We sat down on the side of the road to watch the sunset.
It was nearly 9:30
Cycling had gone well at the start of the day, so we were at 167 km by now. We decided to cycle another 3 kilometers and then find a place to camp. At that point, there was a mobile home in the field next to us so we couldn't stay there. A while later, people were picnicking. Another kilometer later, we found a nice spot. It was a flat area made of rocks and surrounded by bushes. We knew sleeping on loose sand filled with rocks wasn't great, maybe flat rock slabs would be better?
Our camping spot
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Before we went to bed, we first chatted for an hour on the rocks while watching the sunset. At night it was pretty warm.
The route of day 19
Distance cycled : 170.94 km.